


The Summoning

by sleepy_spook



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Zed is a good girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_spook/pseuds/sleepy_spook
Summary: “Do you think Zed would mind if we got another pet?”“You mean would she eat it? Because yeah, she probably would. Why? You find a stray cat or somethin’?”"Or something."
Relationships: Kevin Levin/Gwen Tennyson
Kudos: 35





	The Summoning

**Author's Note:**

> Gwen never got her own magical animal companion and I think she deserves to have one so that turned into this!

“Do you think Zed would mind if we got another pet?”

Kevin looked up from his plate to see Gwen gazing thoughtfully over at their sleeping dog, the blue creature’s tongue was lolled out to the side and her hind legs twitched every now and then as she chased after some small creature in her dreams. Probably Argit, she always started to drool around him. Eh, if she ate him then she ate him.

The redhead turned to him, one hand under her chin as she gently tapped her fork on the side of her plate with the other, staring right at him but not quite, like she was remembering something else. He had no idea what was going through her mind but he was definitely remembering the last time Zed got near any creature that was smaller than her, there was something to be said about his dog’s persistence as well as her ability to charge off at 60mph like it was no big deal the second a squirrel so much as looked in her direction. That had been an interesting walk, he still had the bruises from being dragged down two flights of stairs before he managed to get control of the Anubian Baskurr again. He knew they shouldn’t have gone for the apartment overlooking the park, convenience be damned, that dog had eyes like a cracked out hawk.

Gwen was still staring at him, the tapping continued until she placed the fork down and folded her arms, her brow creased and he had the sudden urge to smooth it away but her serious expression kept his hands firmly on his side of the table. She was thinking hard about this, her eyes flicking down to his almost empty plate and then back up to his face as she bit her bottom lip.

Oh that was distracting. What had she asked him again? Oh right, Zed wanted a pet squirrel, something like that.

Kevin shoveled the last pieces of dinner in his mouth, twirling his fork between his fingers as he chewed and thought about how to answer this. “You mean would she eat it? Because yeah, she probably would,” he said, he had meant it as a joke but Gwen’s expression didn’t change. “Why? You find a stray cat or somethin’?”

“Or something.” Gwen hesitated a moment before pushing her chair back from the table and disappearing out of their tiny kitchen. He could hear her going down the hallway, the creak of a floorboard let him know she was entering their bedroom. 

Oh, so this wasn’t just a random thought over dinner then. If she was hiding some small creature in the house Kevin wondered how he hadn’t found it yet, it had only been this morning when he’d almost turned the apartment upside down looking for his car keys. Surely he would’ve noticed an extra living thing hiding in the back of the wardrobe or underneath their bed.

Zed was starting to stir now, jagged maw opening in an adorable yawn as she stretched out her long legs and opened one crimson eye. She almost rolled over to go back to sleep before she realised Gwen wasn’t there anymore, her head snapping up as she looked around the room for her in an almost frantic state.

Kevin leaned off his chair towards her, hand outstretched and fingers making a come here motion. “Mama’s ok, she’ll be back in a second, baby.” Zed calmed down almost instantly at his words - he forgot how smart she was sometimes - slowly rising off her bed and giving another satisfying stretch before tottering over to Kevin and nuzzling her angular head in his hands. Sometimes she was far too cute for her own good, it didn’t make sense with those teeth, but when her big eyes were staring up at him like this it was almost enough for him to consider sneaking her some food from Gwen’s plate. Almost.

Zed’s ears perked up, she twisted around to face the doorway seconds before Gwen emerged round the corner. She was holding something large against her chest with both arms wrapped around it and as she got closer Kevin realised it was a book, he guessed it was one of her spellbooks judging by the occult looking swirls of gold and silver that decorated the spine. He couldn’t remember seeing this one before.  
He was about to offer to take it from her, it looked heavy, but instead instinctively grabbed hold of Zed’s collar to stop her from barrelling Gwen over in excitement. The alien dog sometimes forgot she wasn’t the size of a lapdog and would definitely do some accidental damage when she got excited. 

Gwen smiled as she passed by and returned to her seat. Kevin reached across with his free hand and moved her plate and drink out of the way as she carefully lowered the book to the table with a thud. He twisted his head slightly so he could get a better view of the cover and was only a little disappointed by its blandness compared to some of her other tomes; the swirls from the spine continued onto the cover from the top and bottom left corners, two separate lines of gold and silver thread twisted around each other until they met in the middle and were halted by what looked like a heavy seal but it was too faded for him to make it out properly. Some kind of creature, lots of legs.  
There were loose pages peeking out that were yellowed and had small accidental tears from use over the years, he could also see about a dozen small blue slips of newer looking paper sticking out at random intervals, Gwen’s bookmarking system hadn’t changed since he met her. The day she dogeared a page would be the day he didn’t recognise her anymore.

“Babe, we talked about this, a book is not a substitute for a living creature,” he said gently like he was talking to a small child. Zed’s head was in his lap now, raised just enough that she could see over the table and watch what Gwen was doing while still staying within reach of Kevin’s warmth and head scritches. “If this book grows legs I’m throwin’ it out the window.” Zed gave a huff as if in agreement. 

Gwen did laugh this time, shaking her head with a broader smile. “I can’t promise it won’t, but let me just find the right page and I’ll show you...” She opened the book and started to flick through the pages carefully, using the blue tabs to find what she was looking for. 

As the pages whizzed by Kevin tried to get some kind of answers before she explained anything, there weren’t a lot of pictures to give him any clues, just a lot of writing which wasn’t very surprising. Big blocks of handwritten scrawl covered most of the pages and, when Gwen paused to run her finger down a column of a text before moving on, he saw small notes written in several different hands he didn’t recognise in the margins. This book had made its way around before getting to her then, he hoped it wasn’t cursed. Not that it would be the first cursed book she had brought home but he had sat her down to establish some book sourcing rules after the last one tried to bite his arm off as he was putting it back on the shelf, this one hadn’t grown teeth yet so it was probably safe.  
The few pictures he did see didn’t help much anyway, they were either badly drawn or half finished with any identifying features forgotten about. He saw something that looked vaguely like a fish but it might have also had hands so he wasn’t sure.

Gwen was muttering under her breath as she searched, none of it in a language he recognised but that wasn’t surprising either. Ancient magic tomes rarely seemed to care if they were accessible to anyone who hadn’t spent over half their life studying and learning a language that had been dead for thousands of years. 

“Oh, here it is!” she exclaimed, an infectious smile on her face that he fought against returning. He still wasn’t sure where this was heading and needed to keep his guard up. Gwen had been more experimental with her magic in the recent months and she had the burns and scrapes to prove it so nothing was off the table. 

She gave a huff of exertion as she turned the bulky book around so he could see, pointing at a small illustration in the middle of the page surrounded by symbols and hastily written notes. He frowned as he tried to make sense of any of it. The picture that had her so excited wasn’t drawn very well, looking more like a smudged mistake on the page than the focus of an intricate magic ritual. A curling, pale grey tail that stretched far too long and twisted around the chunks of text on the page was the only indication that it was anything other than a dusty ink smear on the page. The drawing was ringed by complicated looking symbols with corrections and substitutions made here and there in many different hands.

“You’re gonna have to spell it out for me, babe.” He has a pretty good guess now at where this was heading but wanted to hear her say it so he knew he wasn’t crazy.

“It’s a summoning spell.”

He gave her a dry look. “For…a pet? Because there’s a pet store like a ten minute drive from here if you want one that bad, don’t need to sell your soul to the devil or nothin‘, just bring your ID.” 

Gwen scoffed and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed again. “It’s not just a pet, it’s a magic pet. Look at this,” she moved to his side of the table now, crouched at his other side as she put her finger under one of the unreadable paragraphs. “It says he’s one of many similar creatures that live between dimensions but can provide magical aid and companionship to whoever summons him.”

Kevin pursed his lips. “Can he talk? Wave a wand? Put your books away when you leave ‘em on the bed and fall asleep? What kind of magical aid are we talkin’ here?” He was only half against the idea, the thought of her summoning a being from another dimension into their home was a little terrifying but he had brought Zed home without consulting her when moments before the dog had been trying to kill them, so he didn’t really have a leg to stand on here. “What if it turns out to be evil? What does all this say?” he tapped at the crossed out notes and corrected symbols.

Gwen tilted her head to the side, her hair brushing against his shoulder. “Failed attempts, from what I can tell, and how to avoid making the same mistakes. Not that it’s a difficult spell, but when you’re the first one to try it you’re bound to mess up a few times,” she flipped to the next page and pointed at something written in loud red ink. “This is a warning from the original author of the book; when attempting this ritual ensure that all candles used are pure white, all exceeding the height of seven inches but no higher than ten and only three are lit at any time to prevent the unintentional summoning of a fire sprite. See, good advice!” Kevin noticed the edges of this page were slightly singed.

Kevin paused for a second, watching her as she poured over the pages. That familiar twinkle of excitement in her eyes that was reserved only for him and her books. He couldn’t deny he was more than a little curious about this now. “Ok, fine, but we’re not doin’ this tonight. You got everything you need?” They were heading to Undertown tomorrow anyway to pick up some tech parts. While magic items and supplies weren’t always the easiest to get hold of, he knew a few stores that usually had what she was looking for.

“I ran out of a lot of the more important stuff a while ago, can I give you a list?” Gwen asked quietly, he knew then that the list would be longer than his arm. “I’ll give you the money, I don’t think it’ll be cheap and there’s a lot of counterfeit versions of some of this stuff so we’ll have to be careful.”

Kevin chuckled and sighed, leaning back so he could pull her down onto his lap and wrap his arms around her, “You worry about not setting our home on fire, I’ll worry about not getting scammed.” 

She rested her head on his shoulder and snuggled against him immediately, he couldn't see her face but he knew she was smiling. They stared at the open pages and the terrible drawing in silence for a while, her small hands finding his and rubbing small circles on his wrist until he felt his eyes starting to grow heavy. He forced himself to stay awake, no way he was falling asleep in this chair again, the back pain wasn’t worth it.

He somehow found the strength to stand up and carry her to their bedroom despite her half hearted protests that she could walk, he let her down and gave her a gentle nudge into their bathroom while he went back to the kitchen to tidy up. Zed was back in her bed, eyes half open as she watched him move around and by the time he was finished she was fast asleep again.

Gwen was in the middle of getting changed when he went back to their room but when he emerged from the bathroom a few moments later he found her perched in the window seat with the heavy tome open in her lap.

She looked up as he shut the door. “The instructions are pretty convoluted but it’s easier to follow than I was expecting,” she told him, motioning down at the book and her attention returned to the pages. “There’s not a lot of stuff that could go wrong but it’s pretty long so I need to make sure I don’t miss anything and, you know, summon a dragon or something.” 

“Yeah, that’d be a little harder to explain to the landlord.” Kevin muttered as he climbed into bed, he expected her to put the book down and join him but she stayed where she was. “It’ll all still be there tomorrow, G.” 

She assured him she’d come to bed soon and he intended on staying awake until she did, it was almost another hour and several more reminders from him before she finally put the book back in its place and slid into his waiting arms. 

~

It wasn’t until the next week that she was able to actually start so they were both more than a little impatient. They had been able to find most of the things she needed in Undertown on their first visit but there were a few items that had taken longer to acquire, who knew magic chalk could be so hard to come by and no regular chalk won’t work she had told him many times as he grew tired of shopping.

But she finally had everything she needed for this damn magical creature. He hoped it was worth it, he trusted her completely but he was still a little unsure of the book. Some of the pictures in there gave him the creeps, he was glad she had settled on this harmless looking smudge as her magical companion and not the twelve feet tall deer looking thing he had seen three pages in.

He was sat on the bed as he watched her draw out the circle, three seven inch tall stark white candles laid out carefully around her as she worked. It took a while but looked beautiful once she was finished to his untrained eye, the symbols matching perfectly with the ones he saw in the book. She sat back on her haunches and glanced over at him. Was that nerves he saw flash in her eyes?

“You ready?” he asked gently, leaning forward onto his stomach so his head and arms hung off the end of the bed.

Gwen nodded, her lip between her teeth. She moved so her back was against the wall, legs outstretched so her feet were just beyond the edges of the chalk circle. She moved the book into her lap, looking down at all the notes left there by previous magic users and ones she herself had added over the last few days.

Then she started to read.

Kevin had no idea what any of the words meant, she had tried to explain some of them to him but whatever she had said disappeared from his mind as he watched her, completely mesmerised. This wasn’t the first time he had watched her perform a spell, but something about this one felt different, more personal, he felt like he was watching something that should be private and almost made a move to leave. But he was frozen, eyes still locked on her rapidly moving mouth. The words sounded ancient, like they hadn’t been spoken in thousands of years and probably would never be again for another thousand. She was starting to glow now, the faintly pink light hovering over her skin and growing brighter every second. The circle was starting to glow as well, starting from the outside and slowly moving inwards until the space on the floor was lit up completely. 

He managed to pull his eyes away and noticed the symbols she had painstakingly copied down near the middle shone brighter than the ones on the outside, and were they moving? He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him but no they were definitely moving closer together. He looked over at Gwen to see if she had noticed, her eyes were completely pink now and he knew she was somewhere else, somewhere beyond his comprehension, somewhere filled with magic so old he wouldn’t last a second before being ripped apart by the power.

She would be fine, he knew she would, she was stronger than any of this. The fact that she was able to keep her own powers so restrained and not lose her humanity every single day was a testament to that. That didn’t stop his stomach from doing backflips as he watched her. He forced himself to look away from her, back to the circle where there was now a small hole the size of his hand glowing intently in the centre. If it went somewhere he couldn’t make it out, he could only hope it hadn’t burned through the floor and whoever lived below them wasn’t about to get a new window.

The candles went out suddenly, it was the middle of the day so they weren’t plunged into darkness at least, but it still made him uneasy. Gwen was still glowing, her mouth half open and the spell over, but he didn’t have her back quite yet. The hole was still glowing as well, dimmer now but he still had to squint to look at it, the chalk from the circle sliding down into it like something was pulling it through. 

Without warning something dark shot out of the hole and landed a few feet away by the window seconds before the last of the chalk disappeared and the hole closed up. There was nothing left, the only evidence that something vaguely abnormal had happened here were the three unlit candles but otherwise the room looked unchanged. The book was still in Gwen’s lap, it had slammed shut as the hole closed and she was clutching it by the spine tightly.

Did it work? He couldn’t tell. He had been expecting some kind of explosion, or the creature to rise from the centre and demand to know who had summoned him. The windows hadn’t even shattered. 

Kevin was about to ask Gwen if she was alright when a pitiful squeak came from over his shoulder, before he could even move Gwen was on her feet and scrambling in that direction. She dropped to her knees, hunched over something he couldn’t see. He could hear her making soft cooing sounds, the same she used to calm Zed during a thunderstorm.

She looked over her shoulder at him, green eyes shining and a nervous smile on her face as she beckoned him over, her other finger on her lips to tell him to be quiet. He slid off the bed and onto his knees, crawling over to her and peering over her shoulder.

A small bundle of pitch black fur lay before them, tangled around itself in a mess of limbs as it mewled and stared up at them. It looked vaguely feline with two pointed ears and a tiny pink nose, its large eyes were a startling blue that swirled around like water and he recognised the impossibly long tail that had been shown in the book, though it was coal black rather than the dusty grey he had been expecting. And then he saw the legs, six of them, tiny and kicking out uselessly as the cat-like creature tried to right itself.

Gwen reached down slowly, sliding her hands under the fur as she helped it onto unsteady feet. It wobbled around in a circle before flopping onto its stomach, legs splaying out in all directions.

“It’s kinda cute,” Kevin muttered, moving around Gwen to poke at the creature with his finger. It immediately tried to bite at him, like a kitten would do, but its teeth were too tiny to do any real damage, it tickled more than anything.

“I was expecting it to be bigger,” Gwen said almost to herself. “I think this is a baby.”

“You ok with that?”

She nodded instantly, a small smile creeping onto her lips as she plucked the creature up and held it in the air to get a better look at it, stubby legs dangling as it stared right back at her. There was intelligence in those eyes, for all it lacked in grace and mobility, it stared back with eyes as intense as her own. 

“You need a name,” she told it seriously. “A good name.” Silence.

Kevin smirked, “You’ve had how long to think of a name and you’ve still got nothing?”

“It’s a big decision!” Gwen whined, holding the creature against her chest and stroking its small head gently. It didn’t try to bite her, it had stopped wiggling almost completely as well, it just stared up at her like it was completely entranced by her. He knew the feeling well.

“Why don’t we go introduce” he tilted his head to check “him to Zed and you can think of a name later.” 

An hour later Kevin sat back against the side of the sofa as he watched Zed and the as of yet unnamed new addition to their family sleep. Zed had taken on a mothering role almost instantly, he had been afraid she wouldn’t like having to share Gwen’s affection but from the way she was curled around the little fluff ball, it didn’t seem like she minded.

Gwen looked happy as well, he knew it hadn’t turned out as exactly as she had planned. She had been hoping for some wisened, mystical being who could help her powers grow. Not some week old kitten who could barely stand on its own legs, all six of them, for more than a few seconds without falling over.  
Another project then, not that she would complain, her determination and ability to turn it around when things didn’t go how she expected was one of the many things he loved about her. 

She was curled up against his side now, asleep as well and snoring softly. He put his arm around her as he looked around the room, looked at this family, his family. He was lucky, he was very lucky. 

Hey, there was a name. Lucky. Maybe it wasn’t as cool as Zed or anywhere in the realm of magic related names like she probably wanted, but he thought she’d like it anyway. He’d tell her when she woke up but for now he was content to sit here and hold her while she slept. 

Yeah, Lucky fit perfectly.

~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
